Mozambique: children sold for organs

Children are being kidnapped or sold in Mozambique and are being used in prostitution rings and forced labour rackets in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Others are less fortunate – they are killed before their vital organs are removed and sold for transplantation.

The alert was raised by a children’s rights activist in Mozambique, Lea Boaventura, the Regional Coordinator for the International Campaign Against the Traffic of Minors, who claimed that her statement was based on evidence gathered by a South African human rights organization.

She said she had evidence that children are being kidnapped or sold in Mozambique and that their organs are removed and sold. It is unclear as to whether the children are killed in the process. Others are sold into child prostitution rackets and conditions of forced labour in neighbouring Zimbabwe and South Africa, according to the same source.

Poor families with many children are often targeted by the unscrupulous, who promise that their children will be given a better future abroad. The end result is so often as tragic as it is unjust.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru LISBON PORTUGAL